Lately public discourse has taken on a Hegelian structure:
Thesis: The United States will triumph overwhelmingly in the war with Iraq. The conflict will be short. Iraqis will welcome us as liberators.
Antithesis: The advance to Baghdad from the south has stalled. Resistance is stiffer than expected. Iraqis don't like us.
In the old days, this dialectic might have taken months to unfold. Now it takes only days -- sometimes hours -- for trends in coverage to emerge, and for those in power to respond with carefully formulated spin. Administration officials and apologists fanned out on the Sunday talk shows yesterday to propose a synthesis:
Synthesis: We've been prepared for the entire range of scenarios. We weren't overconfident. Everything is going according to plan. Trust us.
Yesterday, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers appeared on both Meet the Press and Face the Nation, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld appeared on This Week to try to curb the growing sense that what was supposed to be a swift, surgically precise victory is shaping up to be a bloody, prolonged conflict -- in other words, a real war.
The administration has replaced its cavalier assurance of a few weeks ago with a steadfast message of however-long-it-takes determination. On Face the Nation, Myers said, "Nobody ever promised a short war. . . . Nobody should have any illusions that this is going to be an easy victory." Instead, he predicted a "hard slog." On This Week, Rumsfeld tried to turn the widely held perception that the war is not going as well as expected into an opportunity to show the administration's resolve.
Myers accentuated the positive: British troops are in control of the southern oil fields and therefore able to prevent the environmental disaster that resulted from Iraqi destruction of Kuwaiti oil fields in 1991. Humanitarian catastrophes have not occurred, and aid is on the way. Turkey has not entered Kurdish northern Iraq, as many feared it would. Rumsfeld noted that the United States has "captured some 4,500 prisoners."
Both Rumsfeld and Myers insisted that the Pentagon has not been caught off-guard. The war has not been more difficult than expected, they said, because military planners did not expect anything. In fact, the pair argued, to have done so would have been unprofessional. Rather, Myers said, the Pentagon prepared for a "spectrum" of possible scenarios, from "catastrophic success" to "a longer, tougher war." Still, one could detect a note of desperation in his repeated insistence that "we're on track -- on plan."
One might wonder if the decision to send 120,000 additional U.S troops to Iraq means that the military brass only recently realized the present force is too small. Not so, said Myers. "If there is more force flowing, it was always meant to flow." He sounded like Yoda, but his assurance felt like a Jedi mind trick. If this was the plan all along, it's a strange plan indeed. What could possibly be the strategic benefit of not having the needed reinforcements ready and waiting? We've come a long way from "shock and awe." Perhaps a new slogan could be fashioned from Myers' assertion that "we have the power to be patient."
Both Myers and Rumsfeld were forced to confront earlier administration statements suggesting that the Iraqi army, including the elite Republican Guard, would surrender to U.S. forces in large numbers. Their responses ran the gamut, from Rumsfeld's denial that he'd held such expectations -- "I never did" -- to more elaborate excuses. For instance, Rumsfeld asked rhetorically, "Does it surprise you that a man with a gun to his head isn't waving an [American] flag?" He noted that in 1991, Saddam Hussein crushed the Shia rebellion once the United States left Iraq. The moral of that experience: "Don't encourage people to rise up until we're close," Rumsfeld said.
His contention that Iraqi "death squads" -- the Hussein fedayeen -- are the reason the Iraqi people are not rising up against their own government is clearly the administration's party line for now. Myers echoed it, saying: "What we're seeing now is a population afraid to come forward. . . . I think there's a lot of fear in the population, and with good reason."
Rumsfeld reiterated the administration's earlier suggestions that the explosion in an Iraqi market on Wednesday, which killed 14, was not the result of an errant American bomb or missile but rather of an errant Iraqi anti-aircraft missile. No American plane has yet been shot down, Rumsfeld pointed out, but Iraqi anti-aircraft missiles must be landing somewhere. To support his contention, he also noted that the Iraqi air defense minister has been fired.
Myers characterized Iraq's so-called stiff resistance as the last resort of a doomed regime. Paramilitary raids on supply lines, suicide attacks on stationary troops, guerilla techniques: "Their tactics are absolutely desperation tactics," he said. Those Iraqis now fighting with intensity, Myers argued, are those "whose livelihood, whose very lives" depend on this regime -- those who know they'll be criminally prosecuted, or worse, subject to mob justice at the hands of the local population once the war is over.
Both Myers and Rumsfeld disputed recent reports in both The Washington Post and The New Yorker suggesting that Rumsfeld repeatedly rejected earlier versions of Gen. Tommy Franks' Iraq war plan, which had called for more ground troops. According to those reports, Rumsfeld had insisted that the ground force be reduced. Yesterday, Myers said, "Everyone agreed that the plan is the right plan." But, of course, there's true agreement and then there's Rumsfeld-enforced agreement. "Everything [Franks] asked for he's gotten," Rumsfeld said, adding that no one thought the initial war plan was viable, so it wasn't a case of his overruling anyone.
The administration's proposed synthesis remains to be tested. If things go right, the present excuses will become, in retrospect, nuanced explanations. If things go wrong, it's just more spin. Perhaps the Shia south will rise up once the paramilitaries are destroyed. Perhaps the Third Infantry will seize Baghdad next week. Perhaps a million American flags are carefully stowed in Iraqi basements, waiting to be unfurled. The best point Rumsfeld made yesterday is the obvious reply to those who say the war is already a quagmire: "Nine days. Not nine years. Nine days!"
Former Secretary of State James Baker also appeared on This Week yesterday. It was fascinating to watch him try to provide insight without appearing critical of the administration. "President Bush did everything in the world he could" to win international support for the war, Baker said. In 1991, "it was easier to bring other countries on board. You could sit there in Saudi Arabia and see the Iraqi troops in Kuwait." Still, the inescapable truth crept in. "This is a war of choice," he said, "not a war of necessity." Amazingly, Baker meant this as a statement of support for the present war, and it's certainly a keen analysis of the situation. But it's really an argument against the war: Why choose war if it's not absolutely necessary?
Baker also urged George W. Bush to get involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict soon after the war with Iraq is over, just as Bush Senior did after the Gulf War. Baker encouraged Bush to pressure both sides to accept the "road map" already endorsed by the United States, the European Union, Russia and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. "There should be an end to terrorism -- unconditionally," Baker said. "There should be an end to settlements -- unconditionally." Bush has long resisted issuing such demands to Israel. Perhaps now would be a good time to start. It's been more than nine years since the signing of the Oslo Accords, after all. Not nine days. Nine years!
Gabriel Wildau is a senior at Brown University and a former Prospect intern.
